Mississippi Book Festival 2019 – Page 5

Tag: Mississippi Book Festival 2019 (Page 5 of 7)

Author Q & A with Snowden Wright

On February 3, 2019

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger (February 3). Click here to read this interview on the Clarion-Ledger’s website

Meridian native Snowden Wright’s second novel, American Pop, is a refreshing saga (and it really is a saga) of a Mississippi family’s rise to fame and wealth as their soft drink empire builds and fizzles.

Based in the Panola County city of Batesville, the drink is aptly named Panola Cola (PanCola for short). The book follows not only the often-outrageous behavior of many of the owner’s family members, but the relentless pursuit of “cola hunters” who will do anything to find out the drink’s famous “secret ingredient.”

American Pop has been chosen as an Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. Wright’s debut novel, Play Pretty Blues, received the 2012 Summer Literary Seminars’ Graywolf Prize. His work has also appeared in The Atlantic, Salon, Esquire, the New York Daily News, and other publications.

A graduate of Dartmouth College and Columbia University, Wright now lives in Atlanta.

Tell me about your life as a child in Mississippi.

Snowden Wright

Born and raised in Meridian, I went to Lamar School, where I was an embarrassingly good student, a spectacularly bad athlete, and an obnoxiously voracious reader.

Meridian’s lack of a bookstore for much of my childhood made that last point a bit of a problem. Fortunately, I would often spend time on my family’s farm in Yazoo County, and on weekends my father and I would come to Jackson. He would give me a $20 bill to buy a book upstairs at Lemuria while he enjoyed a couple Scotches at the bar. Back then there was a bar on the first floor of the building.

I would spend hours picking out just the right book. It was basically my indoctrination to the written word. So I often like to say I have two things to thank for my writing career: Lemuria Books and Johnnie Walker Black.

American Pop is a sprawling historical novel about one family’s rise to wealth and success in the soft drink business across much of the 20th century. What inspired you to write a nearly 400-page novel based on a soft drink business?

The inspiration was as easy as opening the fridge. I’m sure most readers will find in their fridge at least a can or two of Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, or Dr. Pepper. To me, soda is emblematic of America, not only because it came into mass popularity here, but also because it’s an ingenious feat of capitalism. Take some water, carbonate it, and stir in some syrup, then, presto, you’ve got a multi-billion-dollar industry.

Once I’d settled on the idea of a soft-drink company, though, I faced a challenge in creating the family that owned it. To craft a narrative with complete omniscience, the kind that provides flash-forwards as well as flashbacks, I needed to know all the family members from the very first line, their personalities as well as their life stories. It was going to take forever!

Then I remembered my multiplication tables.

In second grade, when we were taught the multiplication tables, I gave each number between zero and 12 a place within a large family–10 was the father, 5 the mother, etc.–and when they multiplied with each other, a little story played out in my head, reminding me of their product. I taught myself math through narrative. So, to create the Forster family, I just transposed those numbers into the novel.

Besides its humorous moments, American Pop takes readers on a thought-provoking, emotional ride through the lives of Panola Cola’s founding family members from the late 1800s to the 1970s. What are we to make of the fact that this family lost its fortune, despite the country’s lasting love affair with cola?

The first epigraph in the novel is from Nathanial Hawthorne: “Families are always rising and falling in America. But, I believe, we ought to examine more closely the how and why of it, which in the end revolves around life and how you live it.”

I wanted the novel to embody that quote–as well as its follow-up, “Southerners need carbonation,” by Nancy Lemann–through the use of a fluid timeline. I tried to create a collage of time periods that, from a distance, represents the entire country and, up close, examines the individual lives of the Forsters.

American Pop is a how-and-why-it-happened novel.

Thanks to the Forster family’s Mississippi heritage, the book has a decidedly Southern slant. How does that affect the story?

Do my characters know it’s Sunday because they have a craving for Chick-fil-A? Do they use dilly beans as stirrers in their Bloody Marys? Are there a pair of duck boots wedged upside down between their pickup’s tool box and back window? Yes, on all accounts!

I have a fondness for getting anthropological about the South. From our language to our social customs to our innate “sense of story,” as I like to think of it, the South in general and Mississippi in particular influence everything I write. That’s especially true with American Pop. Its characters are Southerners who, by dint of their wealth, social prominence, and political aspirations, are put on the national stage. That in turn creates conflict, internal and external, due to this region’s tragic history and the weight of its subsequent, persistent guilt.

I’ve experienced those concerns firsthand. Even though I lived up North for most of my adult life, the fork of the South has forever left its tine marks in the peanut-butter cookie that is my subconscious.

Why did you return to Mississippi to write this book?

After college, I lived in New York for nearly a decade, waking early in the morning to write before heading in to a day job. I began American Pop shortly after the publication of my first novel, Play Pretty Blues, and because of the second novel’s greater scope and length, I soon realized it would take me at least five years to finish. Then, sadly, my grandfather, to whom I’ve dedicated this book, passed away, leaving me a small inheritance. I decided to honor his memory and his generosity by using that inheritance to quit my day job, return to Mississippi, and work full-time on American Pop.

My primary residence during that period was in Oxford, but I also spent a lot of time writing in an old shotgun cottage on my family’s farm, where I’d spent much of my childhood. Being in a place rife with memories and family lore…proved the perfect inspiration for a novel that is, essentially, the story of a family.

Do you have another book in the works?

I do, in fact. Although I’d rather keep its plot a secret for the time being, I can tell you a bit about where I will be writing it. On my family’s farm in Yazoo County lies a pecan grove, where, until it burned down 50 years ago, the house my grandmother was raised in used to sit. I recently completed construction of a house in the same spot. I’ve been calling it “The Sweetest Thing,” after the slogan for PanCola in American Pop.

So, when my book tour is over, I’ll live part-time in The Sweetest Thing, writing my next novel and, ideally, raising a yellow Labrador puppy that I plan to name Falkor.

Snowden Wright will be Lemuria on Tuesday, February 5, at 5:00 to sign and read from American Pop. Lemuria has chosen American Pop as one of its February 2019 selections for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

Author Q & A with Hank Burdine

By Guest Author

On January 20, 2019

In Southern Culture

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (January 20)

A Greenville native who strayed from his beloved Mississippi Delta to do a “walkabout” with his family in Colorado and Florida for a while, Hank Burdine has said since his return that he “really doesn’t care” if he “ever leaves the state lines of Mississippi again.”

The gentleman farmer, road builder, and author, who has gained a reputation as “the historian of the Delta,” has bestowed upon his fellow Deltans–and the rest of the world–a gift of memories and stories that may otherwise have been lost, with his newest book, Dust in the Road: Recollections of a Delta Boy (Coopwood Publishing Group).

The compilation of 60 essays about the people, places, foods, and culture of this enigmatic Mississippi region was gleaned from columns Burdine has contributed to issues of Delta Magazine since its beginning in 2003.

He has authored Mississippi Delta, The Flood of 2011 and was a contributor to The Delta: Landscapes, Legends, and Legacies of Mississippi’s Most Storied Region. He also co-authored, with Melody Golding, Panther Tract: Wild Boar Hunting in the Mississippi Delta.

Hank Burdine

Today Burdine lives on his farm in Chatham (near Greenville), where he hunts, writes, keeps an eye out for good stories, and, as author Richard Grant (Dispatches from Pluto) put it in his epilogue to Dust in the Road, is said to be “good at solving problems” for friends and neighbors.

And, as wild as some of his tales may seem, he emphasizes their authenticity.
“Many times,” Burdine said, “I have heard others say, ‘How do y’all make those stories up?’ Well, we don’t make them up, these things actually happened and are real!”

Below he discusses his book and his love for his home–the Mississippi Delta.

Tell me about your new book Dust in the Road: Recollections of a Delta Boy, and the stories you reveal in it.

I first started writing for Delta Magazine after I read the very first copy with Lee and Pup McCarty on the cover. While living in Florida, I contacted Delta Magazine and submitted a Final Word column titled ‘Mississippi will always be home.” Senior editor Melissa Townsend asked me to write an article and … it was published. The next month she contacted me and said, “Okay, what do you have for us this issue?” And, it has been like that ever since for over 68 articles.

Realizing that there was a book there of these articles, I decided to sort them out. The book just kind of fell into place. It has been such a great honor and pleasure to think of these stories, research and interview and “Dig up bones.” These stories are out there, and they just need to be pulled out and compiled and written down for posterity; if not, they will be lost forever.

The essays in your book recount much of the Delta’s past. Tell me about your research for information about those historical tales.

My research begins when an idea of a story or person comes to mind through conversation or just happenstance. Then I start calling friends and (checking out) newspapers, libraries and the internet, putting together a stack of papers from which to read and highlight until I sit down and start writing. It takes me most of a day to write an article and then another day to critique and edit what was written.

I have had some good editors at Delta Magazine to bounce off ideas. Of course, it’s a group effort, but I have been given the freedom to choose what I want to write about. It’s fun but it is damned hard work also.

The book is filled with stories of some of the region’s well-known artists, writers, musicians, and “indomitable characters.” Can you name a few among these whom you have personally known and who you believe have been particularly influential to the Delta’s culture?

The Elder Statesman of the Blues, Sam Chatmon, who “Gave Dignity to the Blues” was a dear friend of mine as was Son Thomas, Muriel Wilkins, the indomitable Duff Durrough, Eden Brent, and Jimmy Phillips. These bluesmen and blues women had a tremendous impact on the musical history and mystique of the Delta.

Literary greats Hodding Carter, Bern Keating, Julia Reed, Beverly Lowry, and Richard Grant were and are great and loving friends. Characters like Larry Pryor, Silky Sullivan, Joe Call, Hot Moore, John Ruskey and Bubba Tollison were all good friends and had an impact on my life and the stories I tell. Dinty Moore, the Doe Signa family, Anthony Herrera, Bill Beckwith and Leon Koury all were or are deep and dear friends.

What an honor it is to write for posterity the stories and lives of friends. And to be able to chronicle my son Matt’s personal odyssey on a solo canoe trip from the headwaters of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico–wow!

Dust in the Road includes nine essays about the Delta’s unique cuisine in its section called “A Bite to Eat and Drink in the Delta.” Why was it important to include Delta food in this collection?

The deep influence of Delta inhabitants such as the Italians, Chinese, Lebanese and restaurants like Lillo’s, Lusco’s and Doe’s, How Joy, The Shady Nook, Abe’s, Josephine’s, and the Rest Haven are indelible in the Delta’s history. And now, newer places such as Dino’s, Vito’s, The Blue Biscuit, and The Onward Store have joined the charge. Stewart Robinson has started a pop-up fine dining experience in unusual places, bringing in award winning chefs from across the country. And Delta Supper Club is the place to be on given dates!

Ecotourism is now alive and well and pushing places like Clarksdale, Cleveland, Indianola and now Greenville to new and expanding plateaus. The Shackup Inn in Clarksdale and Tallahatchie Flats in Greenwood bulge at the seams with international travelers wanting to come to the Delta and experience the Blues.
With venues like the B. B. King Museum, The Grammy, Dockery Farms, Sky Lake, Blues museums and the Hot Tamale Festival, people are coming from far away to experience the Delta and to see first hand what the mystique is all about. The Delta is hot!

Tell me about how you became a storyteller.

If the Delta is anything, it is a place of stories. Those stories you heard as a child, to be embellished as you grow up and learn more about the people within them. And it is stories about the things you do that make an impact on families and friends.

If you don’t retell them, they are lost, and I have been honored to be able to write some of these stories down for future generations to enjoy and use as a reference later on. There was a lot of blood and sweat and tears and joy, triumphs and tragedies that brought this God-forsaken swamp into what it is today, and that does not need to be forgotten.

Signed copies of Dust in the Road are available at Lemuria’s online store.

Natural storyteller James L. Robertson relates Mississippi’s wild legal history in ‘Heroes, Rascals, and the Law’

By Guest Author

On January 11, 2019

In Law, Southern History

By Leslie Southwick. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (January 6)

Expectations about reading legal history likely start at boring and work down the tedium scale from there. With the right guide, though, a trip to historic places found on Mississippi’s legal landscape can intrigue the mind and stir the soul. Jimmy Robertson, it is clear, was the right person to narrate the journey in Heroes, Rascals, and the Law.

Robertson is a former Mississippi Supreme Court justice, a long-time practicing attorney, and a frequent law professor. He recounts ten occasions from statehood to the late 1940s when the Mississippi constitution impeded or impelled justice. Fortunately for our enjoyment, John Grisham’s comment on the book’s cover that Robertson is a gifted storyteller is spot on.

No doubt, lawyers will appreciate the book differently than readers not encumbered by that knowledge. Yet all interested in this state’s history can enjoy and be enlightened by the stories. It helps that Robertson’s exhaustive explanations are expressed in a conversational style.

The first account is from 1818. A group of slaves who had lived with their masters in free territory for decades, were then brought to Mississippi to be sold in a slave market. Some of them escaped, found lawyers, and argued in court that their residing where slavery was barred had irrevocably freed them. The Mississippi Supreme Court had little legal precedent to direct it. Justice Joshua Clark, Robertson’s earliest hero, proclaimed that when the law was unclear, he would presume it would “be in favor of liberty.” The 28 slaves were declared to be free.

Among the quarrels are a few in which the legislature enacted controversial laws. In 1912, for example, the legislature limited a workday in the lumber industry to ten hours. Robertson explains why with his vivid descriptions of the dangers to the workers cutting the trees and those in the mills who lost their fingers, their arms and legs, and even their lives with appalling frequency. The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the limit despite arguments that it interfered with the right of everyone to enter any contract they wanted.

Other chapters focus on officially approved lawlessness. One explores the blatant ignoring of statewide Prohibition laws in the “Gold Coast” in western Rankin County. Beginning in the 1930’s, the thirsts of Jacksonians could be quenched at such ramshackle establishments as the Red Top, Dipsie Doodle, the Silver Moon, and many more. The governor literally sent in the troops (the National Guard), and the Supreme Court later upheld his boldness.

Robertson is a tenacious biographical archaeologist, bringing to light what had been buried about those populating these historic events. Robertson is as concerned with giving narrative life to the parties in the lawsuits as to the public officials who arbitrated their disputes.

Justice Virgil A. Griffith is another hero the book allows us to know. He dissented in 1935 to allowing confessions that had been beaten out of three black suspects from being used at their murder trial. The U.S. Supreme Court soon vindicated Griffith’s dissent.

Another forwarding-thinking judge whom Robertson praises is Chief Justice Sydney M. Smith. He upheld legislation that allowed the state to experiment with ways to promote industrial development despite constitutional barriers reflecting the laisse-faire attitudes of earlier times.

Indeed, Robertson’s view of right and wrong in his chronicles is whether Mississippi’s constitution was allowed to be muscular or whether the dead hand of legal tradition restrained it. The author’s preferences are explicit, but he fairly discusses different perspectives.

Readers of all political persuasions will be entertained, enlightened, and even dumbfounded by what litigants and courts have gotten themselves into, and only sometimes out of, during 130 years of Mississippi history. The book is a triumph of storytelling.

Leslie Southwick is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Jackson. He is the author of a memoir, The Nominee: A Political and Spiritual Journey.

James L. Robertson will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 as a participant in the “Crime and the Law” panel at 4:00 p.m. in the State Capitol Room 201 H.

Margerita’s Gridiron Adventure: The revealing perspective of a Slovenian on Southern football and culture

By Guest Author

On January 9, 2019

In Southern Culture, Sports

Margerita Jurkovic recently moved to Jackson, Mississippi, to extend her legal education. A highly successful young lawyer from the small European country of Slovenia, her passion lies in representing victims of domestic violence, and she is working diligently on legislative improvements in the anti-human trafficking field. She came to the United States to finish her doctoral research while concluding her American LL.M. program and had the terrific opportunity to work with Mike Frascogna Jr., her former law professor.

In the meantime, something interesting happened.

Before August 2018, Margerita had never seen a football game. Not “American football,” anyway. Her first game experience was at Jackson Academy, where the Raiders hosted Lamar School at the Brickyard. This was where she learned firsthand what it means to make a tackle and to sack an opponent—and she was hooked! Soon she started a blog, which is sharing her life-changing experiences with both the American and European public. After highly encouraging feedback from readers, she decided to write a full-length book—a visual, highly-compelling look at not only her perspective from the field, but the culture around football . . . and especially the culture of the steamy, sun-drenched south.

Margerita keeps a sharp eye on all aspects of the habits, cultural experiences, and politics deriving from her stay in the Magnolia State and finds the inhabitants of her “home away from home” fascinating. Through moments both humorous and poignant, readers will have a keen sense of just how a visitor from across the world sees and interprets surroundings that so many locals take for granted. This exciting blog is just a taste of what readers will enjoy upon release in summer 2019.

WHAT I’M UP TO . . .

When I moved to Jackson, I developed an addiction for the first time in my life—an addiction to football! No, I’m not from Hattiesburg or Tupelo or Gulfport or Standing Pine, Mississippi. I’m from Slovenia! Yes, that Slovenia, way across the world in central Europe (the former Yugoslavia, where Melania Trump is from). And I have opinions—including some pretty strong ones—about what I see not only on the sidelines of games at Mississippi State University, Jackson State University, Belhaven University, and Jackson Academy, but what I’m learning about Americans—specifically some really interesting Mississippians—along the way. I know this much: Y’all drink a lot of sweet tea here! Please check out my website and be a small part of my game of life!

Appalachian Asphyxiation: ‘Sugar Run’ by Mesha Maren

By Former Lemurians

On January 8, 2019

In Southern Fiction

by Julia Blakeney

I picked up Mesha Maren’s debut novel Sugar Run just as I was finishing a semester-long study of Cormac McCarthy’s work. McCarthy’s Appalachian novels are some of the most wonderfully written books I have read in a long time. Once the class was over, though, I really felt like I wasn’t done with this niche genre of fiction. So, I started looking for similar novels, set in Appalachia, to read to fill the gap. Luckily, Sugar Run jumped out at me from a stack of advance readers.

This novel certainly gave me what I was looking for. With a fantastically driven plot, compelling prose, and beautiful descriptions of that unique, rural, mountainous region of West Virginia, this novel was really hard to put down. I found myself carving time to read this novel into every moment of my day, something I haven’t done with a novel (one not for school) in a long time.

One of the most compelling things about this book was the charged atmosphere in which the protagonist Jodi McCarty finds herself once she returns to her hometown after 18 years in prison. One of her brothers has resorted to selling drugs to make ends meet. He asks Jodi to hide drugs for him–first bribing her with money, then using blackmail to force her to do so. Jodi herself has trouble finding work, since no one wants to hire a convicted felon. She has no money to buy back her grandmother’s land that was sold out from under her while she was in prison. An oil company is also fracking on the mountain, which pollutes the water and drives people away. All of this is a recipe for disaster for Jodi as she struggles to acclimate to life outside of prison.

As Maren alternates between Jodi’s life before and after prison, I became engrossed in her story. I looked forward to reading each new chapter and uncovering each new discovery in Jodi’s and other characters’ pasts that Maren has to share with me. I loved this book from beginning to end: from Jodi’s determination to make a life for herself and save her family land from fracking, to the secrets Maren reveals at a slow pace, this novel is raw and compelling, as well as an interesting representation of how the working class struggles to make a living in the early 2000s in West Virginia.

Mesha Maren will be at Lemuria on Tuesday, January 15, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and read from Sugar Run.

Author Q & A with Sheree Rose Kelley

By Guest Author

On December 23, 2018

In Southern Cooking

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (December 23)

Among the many roles that Nashville’s Sheree Rose Kelley holds, her most cherished is home baking–an art she not only believes in doing, but in sharing.

Her debut cookbook, Breads & Spreads is the first in a series she has planned with The Nautilus Publishing Co. in Oxford to “spread” the word that she feels compelled to share her kitchen skills and talents learned from the “endless line of great cooks and bakers” in her own family.

Not only does the book embrace Kelley’s rural roots of growing up in Giles County, Tennessee (encouraged by the bounty of her father’s large summer garden each year), but it enthusiastically reveals her love of the city (sparked by “sampling new restaurants and shopping for exotic ingredients”).

And when she’s not baking rolls, cakes, or biscuits, she’s fulfilling her duties as CEO of Belle Meade Winery, situated on the estate of Belle Meade Plantation in Nashville, where her husband Alton serves as executive director. At the winery she conducts culinary tours, gives cooking lessons and supervises daily wine tastings and special private events, including weddings, on the property.

When Kelley decided she was ready to take on the task of creating a book to share her family recipes, she turned to new acquaintance Roben Mounger for assistance.
“Sheree’s husband Alton introduced us,” Mounger said. “She was familiar with my blog, Ms. Cook’s Table. One day she called to ask for my help with her cookbook idea. She requested that I hold her accountable for the work to be done. For over a year, I tested and refined recipe directions and edited content.”

Mounger’s own interest in food writing had been spurred by another cookbook more than a decade ago.

“Since reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (a non-fiction work that examines one family’s story of learning to eat only locally-grown food for a year) by Barbara Kingsolver in 2007, I have been committed to documenting family stories and tales of seasonal eating, by way of a blog, newspaper column and area magazines,” Mounger said. “Breads & Spreads is the second cookbook project tied to historic Tennessee landmarks which I helped to supervise.”

Mounger said working on Breads & Spreads was more than merely a job.

“For me, working with Sheree was a dream of an assignment,” she said.

The result is a book filled with heartwarming stories, numerous family pictures and a gallery of fantastic food shots of her recipes for breads, biscuits, rolls, cornbread, appetizers and “specialty foods,” not to mention an entire chapter called ‘Spreads and Gravies’!

“Sheree has an adventure-ready spirit when it comes to learning,” Mounger said. “She has taken cooking classes in . . . France, England, Italy, Ireland, and Spain, and she says, ‘So far so good,’ with a twinkle in her eye for the other countries on her short list.”

Below Kelley discusses Breads & Spreads and her own passion for cooking.

Please tell me about the “long line of good cooks” in your family, and how they inspired you to take an interest in cooking at a very early age.

Sheree Rose Kelley

Not everyone has grandparents live into their 90s. I have been blessed to know and learn from the best. Honestly, I didn’t have a choice–it was a way of life. We grew and ate everything from the farm. It came naturally for me. I didn’t know any other way.

Learning to make cornbread and biscuits was so satisfying; those were the staples of every meal. Even as a child I was looking for new recipes to prepare, knowing I could always go back to my firsthand knowledge.

I watched Mama make Hushpuppies a million times for the many “fish suppers,” as Grandmommie would call them. She never had a recipe and when I added this to my book, I had to develop it–and they are mouthwatering!

The satisfaction in knowing how to prepare something and have it look appealing and taste good was exciting!

Tell me about Belle Meade Winery and your cooking classes there.

I first started in the gift shop branding foods for the Belle Meade line. We began to look for additional revenue streams for the site. Alton, my husband and executive director of Belle Meade Plantation, and I started the Belle Meade Winery in November 2009. After we got the winery on its feet I began developing recipes using our wines. The baking classes started shortly afterward.

The class begins with a guided hospitality tour of the mansion and then to the original working kitchen where I teach biscuit baking and ends in the winery for a wine tasting. It was a natural fit to combine the food and wine. Each guest has an opportunity to purchase the tools I use for the class, as well as any new kitchen items on the market.

Before you went to work at Belle Meade, your success with Pampered Chef was phenomenal! Did this come as a surprise to you at the time? Was it hard to give it up?

My love of selling comes naturally. Even as a little girl I would sell cards and stationary in my Mama’s beauty shop. When the opportunity for my two loves–cooking and selling–came together with Pampered Chef, I was in “hog heaven.” I earned my first trip without knowing I achieved it. I received a call from the home office to tell me I was on track and I just kept doing what I was doing and before I knew it, I was on my way to Disney World with the whole family. I had enthusiasm for the product and it shined through to each of my customers.

I really haven’t given it up–I’m selling and teaching in a different format.

Please tell me about the wonderful cover and unique binding of this book.

On a trip to England, I picked up a cookbook that was very appealing from the cover. As I examined the book, I discovered the Swiss binding (which allows the spine of the book to lay flat). As for my cover, that was the hardest decision I had to make. Would it be formal, casual, my picture on the front–or not, whatever, it had to be appealing and certainly speak to the title of the book.

Breads & Spreads is the first in a series of cookbooks you’ve planned in order to share more of your family secrets in a variety of different foods. Tell me about the series, and why you chose to start with a book on baking.

Making biscuits was the basis for the cookbook. My claim to fame is winning First Place in the 4-H Bread Baking Contest in the fourth grade for my homemade biscuits. Each meal begins with bread so why not start a series of cookbooks with the same?

My next book will be called “Summer.” My Daddy said this past summer was his final garden. I asked that he please plant one more, so I could have it photographed from the time he turns it in the early spring to harvest. All my favorite summer recipes will come alive. He has agreed!

Your faith has obviously played an important role in your life. Tell me how this has guided your career decisions.

The scripture verse of Hebrews 13:2 says, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”

Hospitality was a part of me before I even knew what it meant, and it has been a guiding principle in my life.

Signed copies of Breads & Spreads are available at our Lemuria’s online store.

Heiskell’s updated ‘Southern Living Party Cookbook’ provides guide to entertaining

By Guest Author

On December 18, 2018

In Cooking, Southern Cooking, Southern Culture

By Martha Foose Hall. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (December 16)

“If you are ever at a loss when planning a menu, just add a hushpuppy,” advises caterer, cookbook author, and culinary entrepreneur Elizabeth Heiskell in the recent revamp of the 1972 classic Southern Living Party Cookbook. This time around the tagline “A Modern Guide to Gathering” has been added along with favorite recipes from recent issues of Southern Living and Elizabeth’s hits from the party circuit she has traversed across the south and settled into in Oxford, Mississippi.

In five event themed chapters entitled: Teas, Coffees, and Receptions, Brunches and Luncheons, Come By For a Drink, Y’all, Cookouts, and Celebrations and Dinners, Elizabeth covers festivities ranging from casual get-togethers to elegant formal dinners. The book opens with her reminiscing about the grand hostesses in her family and owning up to some of her party foibles followed by a Hosting Handbook. This section lays out the basics for novice party throwers (and guests) and reminds seasoned hosts (and guests) of some of the simple niceties of entertaining such as invitation etiquette and proper place setting. The most helpful part of this guide may be the pages devoted to estimating quantities of food and beverages needed for different occasions which can be tricky even for experienced hosts.

Scattered throughout the book are helpful guides from the 70s edition such as how to carve a standing rib roast and how to set a tea tray. The reprinted Wine Selection Guide does seem a tad dated when looking at the choices of bottles available these days. The Champagne Primer, however, is more detailed and makes a handy reference, especially when following her encouragement to throw a soiree with, “nothing but fried chicken and free-flowing Champagne.”

The chapters present recipes in menu formats with tips on how to get everything done without stressing out. Elizabeth and the talented team from Southern Living dispense guidance on setting up a buffet and everything surrounding a party from flower arranging to selecting glassware to stain removal. There is even instruction of how to make gilded Easter eggs to use as place cards. Entertaining types will no doubt pick up some decor and table design ideas from the lovely vignettes in the colorful photographs.

Crepes St. Jacque, filled with Chablis cream sauce, scallops, and lump crab meat was a dish poised for a comeback. This imposing sounding dish is one of over 60 recipes initially featured in the 1972 edition. Here the recipe is broken down into two sweeping steps, thereby reducing the intimidation factor. Elizabeth shares some astute counseling she received which was to be ready to pitch out the first couple of attempts in a batch of crepes to get the method down and reminds cooks to make extra crepes to stash in the freezer. Throughout the book, Elizabeth’s tone as a knowledgeable neighbor is sure to comfort harried hosts.

Another sage piece of advice precedes the Fried Pork Chop recipe featured in her Gospel Brunch menu which includes Hoppin’ John, Squash and Swiss Cheese Casserole, and Banana Pudding Pie. Elizabeth adroitly advises readers to master the technique of making pan gravy. It is a skill that will serve a home cook for a lifetime and because a good gravy can make all the difference in the world. Elizabeth’s chatty nature shines brightly in this book, and it seems she could not resist throwing in a “bless her heart” and a few “Honeys” here and there. It is the easy instruction, timeless recipes and encouraging manner that is sure to make this an enduring cookbook and a practical gift for newlyweds, budding hostesses, and folks that like to have a good time.

Martha Foose Hall is the author of Screen Doors & Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales of a Southern Cook, the best-selling homage to Southern cooking, won the James Beard Award for American Cooking and The Southern Independent Booksellers Award. Her other titles include: A Southerly Course: Recipes & Stories from Close to Home; Oh Gussie! Cooking and Visiting in Kimberly’s Southern Kitchen and My Two Souths: Blending the Flavors of India into a Southern Kitchen with Asha Gomez. Martha makes her home in the Mississippi Delta with her husband and son.

Elizabeth Heiskell will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 as a participant in the “Southern Hospitality” cooking panel at 10:45 a.m. at the Galloway Fellowship Center.

Author Q & A with Timothy Pakron

By Guest Author

On December 9, 2018

In Southern Cooking

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (December 9)

Mississippi native and vegan enthusiast Timothy Pakron has combined his passions as an artist, photographer and recipe developer into a debut cookbook like no other.
Mississippi Vegan: Recipes and Stories from a Southern Boy’s Heart was written, he says, “in a rather unconventional way.”

Instead of hiring a photographer, food stylist, and “a team of people” to help, Pakron shot all of the photos himself, wrote all the text, and invited friends from all over the world to come to his Mississippi Gulf Coast home to help him “cook, document, and style the food” that became the recipes in his book.
And the research, he notes, was constant: he made countless phone calls to his mother.

With the majority of the recipes in Mississippi Vegan being dishes he said he could only “remember in my mind,” that communication was a necessity–although many others were “picked and pulled” from lessons he’s since learned on his own, adding fresh, original dishes to his family recipes.

As one who was always been drawn to the idea of a vegan diet, Pakron not only loves the food but has embraced “vegan” as a lifestyle that he wants to share enthusiastically.

Pakron’s biggest hope is that readers understand Mississippi Vegan as a concept, not a specific location.

“It’s a constant celebration of delicious food, memories, and pride in growing and sourcing local produce,” he states in the book’s introduction. “It’s an exploration of nature and a constant search for beauty that exists in this world.”

Today Pakron lives in New Orleans, where he is refining his blog and weighing a variety of options for his next creative step.

Please tell me about your education and culinary training, your career, and what eventually brought you to New York City.

Timothy Pakron

When I was young, I would always watch my Mama cook in the kitchen. When I was a teenager, she taught me how to make gumbo. Later on, I went to College of Charleston in Charleston, S.C., where I majored in studio art, which included printmaking, painting, sculpture, and photography. Upon graduating, I began showing my art in galleries while also working a multitude of different jobs.

I moved to New York in my mid-20s to pursue my career as an artist. Eventually, I felt dissatisfied and begin focusing on food styling, food photography, and recipe development. By working as a server in three different vegan restaurants and hosting pop-up events where I was cooking all of the food, I gained a lot of experience in the food and beverage world.

Explain what it means to follow a vegan diet, and why adopting it was so important to you.

Following a vegan diet celebrates the abundance of plants and mushrooms. As long as the ingredient is a plant or a mushroom–fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, legumes, shiitakes, criminis, etc.–then it is vegan. If the recipe is an animal product or is an animal by-product, it is not vegan. Eating a vegan diet is important to me because I could not and will not harm animals in any way. Eating plant-based is also healthy and beneficial to the environment, as it is more sustainable than factory farming animals.

Specifically, how do you define “Mississippi Vegan”?

“Mississippi Vegan” is a concept that merges my past and my present. It is a celebration of the abundance of edible plants and mushrooms, creativity, delicious recipes, beautiful photography, and laughter. “Mississippi Vegan” focuses on what vegans do eat instead of focusing on what vegans do not eat. “Mississippi Vegan” is love.

You were living and working in New York City when you decided to create this book, and you realized that the only way you could write it would be to move back to Mississippi. Why was that a necessary part of the project for you, and why did you say that writing this book in Mississippi was “incredibly emotional” for you?

It was necessary because the whole premise of the book was to show people the undercurrent of veganism that exists within the food from my home state–in particular, the region I was raised, the Gulf Coast.

It was incredibly emotional to me because I wrote a book about recipes from my childhood which brought back many memories. I also had not lived in Mississippi for over a decade, so to be back home and pursue such a large creative endeavor in my home state was overwhelming while also beautiful at the same time.

In the book, you describe yourself as a recipe developer, a photographer, and an artist. What role did each of these play in the creation of “Mississippi Vegan”?

Well, for many cookbooks the author will hire a food stylist and a food photographer to shoot their book. Some authors will even hire a ghostwriter to help them with the written material. I did not. I styled and shot everything myself. I wrote every word. I also created all of the recipes or made veganized translations of all of the recipes myself. It was a true labor of love and is 100 percent authentic.

How do you go about creating a new recipe–what are some of the standards or requirements that a recipe must meet to earn the Timothy Pakron seal of approval?

With all of my recipes, I like to push people a little bit, whether it be with new ingredients or using ingredients in a different way. I also want to make sure everything is super flavorful. When I can re-create a traditional recipe that reminds me of my past while also veganizing it, that’s what gets me the most excited!

This book is unique in many ways, including the fact that you did all the photography yourself. Tell me about that process.

It was overwhelming, exciting, fun, and stressful. What most people probably think is that the process was effortless, because the reader sees all of the perfectly composed images laid out beautifully in a book. In fact, there were some recipes I shot over and over and again and I couldn’t get the perfect shot. Some of the images just weren’t good enough!

The other issue I ran into was the fact that I was photographing Southern food, which is inherently not very pretty. Cheese straws, mashed potatoes, gumbo, and Salisbury steak, albeit delicious, are kind of ugly! Now that the project is over, I can honestly say that I am so very proud because I did everything for the book. It truly is my baby.

While “going vegan” seems to be growing in popularity today, some are skeptical for a variety of reasons, including how all nutritional needs are met, especially when it comes to sources of protein. How would you counter that argument?

The whole protein concern is honestly antiquated. I’ve created a career on celebrating vegan food, and if you get one look at me you will quickly notice that I do not look protein deficient! The fact of the matter is that all plants have protein, some more than others, and there is plenty of high-quality protein in things like legumes, nuts, seeds, peanuts, greens, root vegetables, and even things like fruit.

When it comes to vitamins and minerals, plants and mushrooms are amazing sources of both. I invite people to do their own research from reputable sources, not hearsay. There are plenty of books, articles, and documentaries on the topic.

You mention in the book that there will no doubt be new adventures and chapters in your life that will see you moving away from Mississippi once again. Can you share other ideas or projects you’d like to explore? And do you foresee new books as a result?

Well, a few months after I finished my book, I decided to move to New Orleans to start a new chapter in my life. And I love it here! This year I am really focusing on my blog, making sure to consistently post recipes. I could see myself writing another book, but I need a break first! If I had to mention anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if I had a streaming TV show of some kind in the future. We shall see!

Author Q & A with Kiese Laymon

By Guest Author

On December 2, 2018

In Biography/Memoir

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (December 2)

Growing up in Jackson, Kiese Laymon learned early on that he would have to learn how to fight many battles, as he experienced the weight of emotional pain, violence, racism, addictions, confusion–and a lifetime struggle with the bathroom scales.

His new book, Heavy: An American Memoir (Scribner) is, literally, a long letter written directly to his mother, as he works through the complexity of his disordered childhood and its continued effects on his life today. The result is a deeply personal, and open, cry for answers as to why theirs was such a difficult relationship even as she unfailingly reassured him of her love.

A single mother who has little money but big expectations for her son, she was determined for her son, she was determined Laymon would get a good education and, in the process, develop a toughness she believed would prepare him for dealing with the curves she was certain white society would throw at him.

The book is a 2018 Kirkus Award Finalist and is shortlisted for the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Nonfiction.

Kiese Laymon

Other books Laymon has authored include the novel Long Division and a collection of essays titled How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. His essays, stories, and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Esquire, McSweeney’s, PEN Journal, Oxford American, Ebony, Travel and Leisure, the Best American series, Paris Review, and many other publications. Another novel, And So On, is due out in 2019.

Laymon is now the Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and English at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. He previously served as an associate professor of English and Africana studies at Vassar College in New York.

Heavy: An American Memoir is a commanding title for a record of one’s life at your age. Describe how the title explains and describes your life, and why you wanted to share your personal story with the world.

The book is really about words and “heavy” is one of the most elastic words we have. It means so much. Sometimes it means intellectual depth. Sometimes it means a lot of weight.

You had a difficult childhood, growing up with a driven, abusive mother who tangled up love with frequent mistreatment–and yet, she was the one who introduced you to books and who demanded a very strict writing discipline from you. Tell me about how writing this book has been a way to sort through the confusion of those years and beyond.

The book was exactly a means of working through things I never worked through. To really remember, I needed to write to my mother since she was my first teacher and the first person to read the sentences I wrote as a child.

You write that, for generations, your family has kept secrets about abusiveness, addictions, issues with weight, and other struggles. Has your relationship with your mother improved over the years?

My mother and I are talking about things we avoided for decades. Every day is work, but we are up for it.

The entire book is written in a technique that directly addresses your mother personally, from start to finish. Why did you decide to frame the book using this unique writing style?

Again, I wanted to write a memoir that I’d never seen. I’d seen people address their children, but I’d never read an entire memoir written to one’s mother. I had to write this book to my mother if I was going to do the memoir justice.

Explain why you skipped your own high school graduation.

I wasn’t a fan of Gov. Kirk Fordice, and he was scheduled to be our graduation speaker. So, I told my friends I was skipping.

That was part of it. The other part was that I was really embarrassed for graduating close to the bottom of my class.

What is your message in this book to the white community, and is it only directed at Mississippians?

I think black Mississippians have spent lifetimes sending messages to the white community. I’m not sure I have anything more impactful to say to white folks than Faulkner, Welty, Wright, Hamer, Morrison, or Baldwin already said.

I wish they’d listen to the lessons writers and freedom fighters have been trying to send them for generations. I really wish they would listen.

You state in your book that if you ever had a child, you would want to raise him or her in Mississippi. After everything you’ve lived through here, why would you say that?

I came back to Mississippi, the culturally richest place in the world, and I needed to be closer to a lot of the people and spirits that ironically gave me a chance to leave.

Is there a new writing project in the works for you at this time, and, if so, can you share any information about it here?

I’m working on a new novel called And So On. I’m so happy to be back in Mississippi working with young writers who will become the future of American literature.

Kiese Laymon will be at Lemuria on Saturday, December 8, at 12:00 p.m. to sign copies of Heavy. Signed copies are available at our online store.

Author Q & A with Frank LaRue Owen

By Guest Author

On November 27, 2018

In Poetry, Zen

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (November 25)

Frank LaRue Owen’s interest in poetry began to develop in his teens, and his journey to become a poet in his own right has developed alongside his spiritual growth, through years of thoughtful studies of Asian spiritual practice.

His first book of poetry, The School of Soft-Attention, was named the winner of the Homebound Publications Poetry Prize in 2017.

The book puts into words Owen’s reflections on key influences on his life, including the Ch’an/Daoist hermit-poetic tradition, Zen meditation, eco-psychology, and a practice he calls “pure land dreaming.” Shaped by Owen’s diversity of cultural experiences and the depth of his spiritual training, his poems encourage readers to “turn to a new way of seeing, a new way of paying attention to the life within and around us.”

A strategist with a metro area marketing-creative firm, Owen has also completed a second book of poetry, The Temple of Warm Harmony, set to release in fall 2019.

Please tell me about your background and how your many opportunities to experience a variety of cultures in many places has helped shape your life today.

I hail from a family with long-standing roots in Mississippi and East Texas. We’ve been educators, ministers, counselors, attorneys, oilmen, cowboys, poets, and artists.

I spent my formative years in Atlanta and Jackson, with my last year of high school spent in Chapel Hill, N.C., where I was introduced to writing through a creative writing class. That high school teacher sent me to a writer’s conference at University of North Carolina at Winston-Salem. I’ve been writing, in one form or another, ever since.

My moving around so much is largely due to my academic journey and my cultural and spiritual explorations. I spent three years in northern Wisconsin at a small environmental college called Northland College where I had an opportunity to study Asian religions, anthropology, psychology, writing, as well as environmental studies at the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute, named for Sigurd Olson, who lived from 1899 to 1982, and was a renowned author, wilderness defender, and teacher.

I attended graduate school at Naropa University in Boulder, Colo., North America’s first accredited Buddhist university, which houses not only a graduate school in mindfulness-based counseling psychology, which I graduated from, but also the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, also known as the MFA in Writing and Poetics, founded by the late Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, and other poets of note, including one of my poetic mentors, the late Jack Collom.

The School of Soft-Attention, your debut book of poetry, was named the 2017 winner of the Homebound Publications Poetry Prize. Did this honor surprise you?

It was a total surprise to win. Poetry had always been more of a personal exploration, an extension of spiritual practice, and not something I sought to formally publish. I created and maintained some online poetry blogs starting around 2000, but never thought it would lead to actual publishing. In 2016, with a lot of encouragement from various quarters, I gathered up what I considered my best work and entered it in the Homebound Publications Poetry Prize for review.
I still consider myself a ‘work-in-progress’ as a poet, so it was unexpected. But it has resulted in a wonderful publishing relationship with Homebound, which is continuing beyond The School of Soft-Attention.

Which came first–the discovery of your talent for writing poetry, or your serious interest in Eastern philosophies?

I dabbled in poetry as an art form in my teen years, and even read some of the poems of Japan’s greatest poets at that time. But I never really developed it. My involvement with Asian spiritual practice really came first, initially through my study of the Japanese martial art of Aikido starting in 1989, and then study of Zen meditation shortly after. I studied Chinese and Japanese religions academically in my undergraduate years with Thomas Kasulis, a scholar of Asian religions, but quickly realized my interest was that of practitioner and not limited to the academic.

Tell me about your journey with doña Río: who was she, and what did she teach you about life, spirituality, and, ultimately, poetry?

Her name was Darion Gracen, a psychologist, wilderness guide, and practitioner-teacher of Ch’an, or Zen, meditation. She was known by many names, “doña Río” among them, and she served as a mentor to many. Initially, I met Darion in an academic setting, but eventually I studied with her in other contexts. She would host circles of people in the mountains of Colorado where we studied an array of subjects with her rooted in meditative awareness in the natural world. Later, after she moved to the Santa Fe, New Mexico, area, I continued studying with her one-on-one for another decade. She embodied a kind of “curriculum” that combined silent illumination, or meditation from the Ch’an or Zen tradition, the practice of dreamwork, a spiritual approach to experiences in the natural world, and poetics as way to process experiences with all of the above.

Ultimately, what I learned from her was how to make one’s heart-mind an ally, how to attend to the creative process, and how one’s essential connection to the Dao, or, the sacred, transcends conditions.

You dedicate this book to Río and to your parents. Please tell me about your parents and their influence on the direction of your life and poetry.

Although rooted in the social justice tradition of United Methodism, my parents have always been very supportive of my journey of cultural investigation and spiritual inquiry, even if this took me into traditions other than their own.

In large part, I attribute to my parents my curiosity about life, my creativity, my love of nature and history, my ability to ascertain value in the world’s cultures and wisdom traditions, and my open mind. Each in their own way has been shaped by Jungian thought and a love of nature. My father continues to study Jungian psychology and the work of a Jungian named James Hollis. My mother–an artist herself–also taught me from a very young age to consult the Chinese I Ching, or “Book of Changes,” and to pay close attention to dreams as a source of life guidance and wisdom, which dovetailed nicely with my studies later in life.

Explain the term soft-attention, and its meaning in your poetry.

There is a dynamic contrast between urban modernity, with its high-velocity pace and incessant barrage of information and bad news that assaults the senses, and the natural world, which has a slower rhythm and a healing power that restores balance in a person, body and mind. The latter isn’t just a quaint idea. As clearly demonstrated in a book titled Forest Bathing by Dr. Qing Li, it is verified by vast studies by medical science.

As I say in one of my poems, it’s possible to “get too much of the world on you.” When this happens, we may find our consciousness becoming harsh, hardened, disfigured. Too much time lived in such a state is detrimental to our health, both physically and psychologically. So, the turn of phrase, “the school of soft-attention,” is a poetic way of referring to the natural world, what we call “the realm of mountains, forests, and rivers” in Daoist and Zen traditions. Time spent in this “school” invites, invokes, instills a very different quality of consciousness, one characterized by a “soft-attention.” From my point of view as a poet, poetry is about observation and perception. For me, the craft of writing poetry has become inseparable from this “soft-attention.” I essentially can’t write unless I’ve entered that level of awareness.

What do you mean when you describe yourself as a hermit-poet?

In a nutshell, it’s a solitary leaning. I require a lot of solitude, for spiritual practice, artistic practice, landscape practice. From the point of view of Buddhist practice, there are various accepted ways or paths e.g. monastic, lay-householder, etc. Though they may have had earlier training in a community context, hermits go their own way and walk a solitary path in this regard. It was the same with my teacher.

The hermit-poet is something of an archetype in the contemplative and literary traditions of China and Japan. A hermit-poet is someone who has placed contemplative practice and artistic life at the center of their existence. When most Westerners hear the word “hermit” they automatically think “recluse” or “misanthrope.” The terms are not synonymous in the Asian contemplative or literary traditions. A recluse is one who leaves the world behind, never to return. Not so with hermits in Daoist and Zen tradition, who remain in contact with society. In fact, there is an old saying from China that goes ‘the small hermit lives in the mountains; the great or accomplished hermit lives down in the town.’

Many of your poems in this book speak of the ordinary–the everyday things of life. In what ways can readers apply some of the lessons of your poetry to their own lives?

My poetry is not for everyone. There are large swaths of people in modern life–“modernistas,” my late teacher would say–who are content with their compartmentalized life, and with the distractions mainstream culture feeds them. They go to a job; they chase money, perceived social status, wealth, or fame; they go home at the end of the day and spend their nights in a TV-saturated trance.

My poetry deals with other points of focus. The mystery of dreams. The inner life. The non-obvious qualities of the places where we live. Though there are letters strung together into lines, and those lines form what appear to be “poems” on the page, I’m not certain if what I write constitutes poetry. They are snapshots of moments from the flow of existence that issue an invitation to the reader–to ponder the true nature of their life, the life of the soul.

In the end, I would be gratified if one or two of the poems stirred people to be a bit more awake to the passage of their life and to ask a few deeper questions about what matters most.

What role does music play in your life and in your writing?

Alongside time in nature, music is a key part of my life and poetry. Music figures heavily in my creative process of writing and other art-making. Likewise, when I publish poems on my website, purelandpoetry.com, each poem is presented with a specific image and soundscape, usually from the archives of ambient musicians to whom I’m connected like Forrest Fang, Roy Mattson, Steve Roach, or Byron Metcalf. Sometimes their music feels like an extension of a poem. Sometimes a poem feels like an extension of their music.

Tell me about your next book coming up.

The next book, being released in fall 2019 is entitled The Temple of Warm Harmony. In some sense, it is a continuation of the thread or emphasis of The School of Soft-Attention. However, I do take up some new themes and orientations. The Temple of Warm Harmony is divided into three sections: The World of Red Dust, Heartbreak and Armoring, and Entering the Temple of Warm Harmony.

We are living in tumultuous times, culturally, socially, and environmentally. The concept of “the world of red dust” comes from a very ancient Chinese Daoist and Ch’an, or Zen, poetic understanding of a world that has fallen out of balance. The poems in the next collection explore some of these aspects of imbalance, disharmony, and realignment with what is known in the traditions as The Way.

Frank LaRue Owen will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, November 28, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and read from The School of Soft-Attention.

Tag: Mississippi Book Festival 2019 (Page 5 of 7)

Author Q & A with Snowden Wright

Author Q & A with Hank Burdine

Natural storyteller James L. Robertson relates Mississippi’s wild legal history in ‘Heroes, Rascals, and the Law’

Margerita’s Gridiron Adventure: The revealing perspective of a Slovenian on Southern football and culture

Appalachian Asphyxiation: ‘Sugar Run’ by Mesha Maren

Author Q & A with Sheree Rose Kelley

Heiskell’s updated ‘Southern Living Party Cookbook’ provides guide to entertaining

Author Q & A with Timothy Pakron

Author Q & A with Kiese Laymon

Author Q & A with Frank LaRue Owen

Authors

Categories

Tags